


After the Battle

by thesadchicken



Series: Lost [1]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas, A Court of Wings and Ruin
Genre: ACOTAR - Freeform, ACOWAR, Angst, F/M, acowar spoilers, honestly I hurt myself writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 05:37:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesadchicken/pseuds/thesadchicken
Summary: "...I slipped into my tent to finally change out of my leathers, leaving him and Elain to go find a place to wash up. And talk - perhaps."- A Court of Wings and Ruin.Or the missing ACOWAR scene where Lucien and Elain wash up. And talk - perhaps.





	After the Battle

It was still day time. Inexplicably, after all that had been done, all that had been lost, the sun was still up in the sky. The wind still caressed the grass, the clouds still gathered in golden heaps near the horizon, and dry mud still crunched under Lucien and Elain’s feet as they walked towards the war camp. The world had not ended; it was all still there. It was just a little smaller.

Lucien took a deep breath and chanced a glance at Elain. She was walking by his side, silent ever since Feyre had left them. Her clothes were bloody and torn in places; her hair a tangled mess; her face as pale as a winter moon. She stared at the ground with a haunted look in her eyes. Her fingers were clutching at the folds in her clothing.

So still. Her legs moved but the rest of her was so impossibly still.

Lucien looked away. It was hard enough to bear her silence. But her unmovable stillness – Cauldron, it _hurt_. It physically hurt to see her this way.

The sounds and scents from the camp started filling the air around them: death and pain and screams and blood. The dead and the dying, the injured and the surviving. None of them quite alive, none of them really here.

Lucien wished he could reach into the pleats of Time and turn back that mighty clock… back to lazy autumn evenings, simpler times, when he knew what he wanted… when he thought that the world was immense and love was eternal. That last autumn, her last evening with him. Those few tender moments, when her hair had curled in whirlpools on the grass and her laughter had spilled into the chill air as he kissed her neck. _Jesminda_. Her eyes had gleamed with mischief and her lips had parted, speaking his name, and her voice, her voice…

Lucien couldn’t remember her voice. It made him stop, his feet unable to carry him, his knees threatening to give out. He couldn’t remember… How could he allow this to happen?

He was forgetting… He knew the day would come but why now? Why now…

“Are you – alright?”

Lucien whipped his head towards Elain. She was standing a few steps ahead of him and she had spoken, but he hadn’t been listening.

“I beg your pardon?” he said, clearing his throat. His mind still stormed with thoughts and questions and shattering sorrow. How could he _forget_ …

“Um, are you alright?” Elain’s voice was as soft as a summer breeze.

Lucien let out a shuddering breath. “I’m – I don’t know,” he breathed, and the honesty of it seemed to unsettle Elain. So he added, gesturing towards the war camp, “It’s just all this… death.”

She nodded: a small, shy movement.  Then she bit her lower lip. She seemed to hesitate, but her lips parted and her eyes gleamed and she whispered, “Take me away from it, please.”

Her voice so gentle it could’ve been mistaken for a breeze rustling the leaves of a nearby tree. “Take me away from all this death.”

Lucien’s mouth fell open. “I thought we were going to wash up and –”

“Please, just… anywhere but here,” Elain said, looking at the mud stuck in her boots.

Lucien just stood there, staring at her in horror and awe. The bond tugged at every fiber of his being, pushing him forward, towards her, and he reached out a shaking hand and brushed her arm with the tips of his fingers.

Elain closed her eyes. A silent answer to his silent question.

So Lucien wrapped his fingers around her tiny wrist and winnowed them away.

He didn’t give it much thought; he just _took her away_ _from all the death_. And perhaps his magic was waning, perhaps the journey back to Prythian had taken its toll on him, but he couldn’t get them very far. When they shifted back into the world, they were in a meadow. Near a river. Made of starlight.

The starlight pool of the Spring Court.

It was actually rather logical, really. After all, they were here to wash up, weren’t the?  And this _was_ water, starlit or not. Lucien’s powers couldn’t take them much further than the Spring Court. So here they were.

Lucien’s heart clenched at the sight. Simpler times indeed…

But Elain was standing still once more, so impossibly still, and her eyes were wide with curiosity. Lucien looked at her and wished it would be the last thing he ever saw. Her cheeks had gone slightly red; her lips were shaking; her eyes gleaming in the late afternoon light. It only lasted a second, that moment of unabashed wonder, and then she was back to her paleness and vacant stares.

But Lucien had seen it. Had seen the life bubble inside her tiny body. Had seen a flame sizzle beneath the surface. And it left him breathless with emotion.

He watched as Elain walked down to a starlight pool and crouched in front of it. Her tattered clothes clung to her body. Too thin – Lucien frowned. She was too thin; probably not eating enough. She reached into the pool and dipped her cupped palms into the liquid starlight. Lucien tilted his head to the side. The pools – eerily enough – reminded him of the Night Court. His future home, perhaps?

There hadn’t been a home for Lucien since Jesminda. And there had been a time when he’d thought… He’d thought there never would be again. But now he was _forgetting_ , it was finally happening, and he didn’t know what to do anymore…

Elain crouched lower and brought her hands up to wash her face. Lucien watched, heart racing. _My mate_ , he thought, over and over, _my mate_. As if answering his silent call, she turned towards him, eyebrows raised questioningly.

He tried to relax. He knew she could smell the nervousness on him. So he smiled awkwardly and walked towards her, sitting cross-legged by her side. She looked at him a moment more, her eyes taking him in with a blankness that made his chest ache. So he turned away, looking into the pool and the galaxies within it.

His reflection stared back at him. His hair was undone, cascading down his shoulders. He reached behind his head and tied it all up in a bun. A few strands fell onto his forehead, tainting his vision with glimmers of red.

“An autumn fire,” Elain said so suddenly that Lucien jumped, “She was an autumn fire in a lifeless forest.”

It was so silent around them that Lucien’s ears had started to buzz. Not even the birds sang here anymore. Silence and emptiness and memories; a realm of nothingness. Just Lucien and Elain and the pool… and then Elain’s words echoing in the air between them.

Lucien closed his eyes. “No,” he whispered, knowing exactly whom Elain was talking about, “No, she wasn’t a fire. She was Autumn itself.”

 _A seer_. That was Elain’s gift – and curse. And yet she couldn’t see through him, not entirely, no.

“I don’t really know what’s happening,” she said, pouring water over her arms, rubbing away the mud and blood, “I don’t know what to think or feel or say…”

Lucien swallowed back the words suspended on the tip of his tongue. Instead, he took a deep breath and said, “I know. That’s alright.”

Elain pulled her hair to one side and rubbed water over the back of her neck. “You can come back to the Night Court if you want, and maybe we’ll… we can… we’ll talk about things.”

Try as he might, Lucien couldn’t suppress the sad smile that crept onto his face. “I’d be delighted to, Elain.”

At the sound of her name she turned to him, and their eyes met. That silence again, except this time he could hear her heavy breathing, her rapid heartbeat, the flicker of a thought running through her mind. And he gawked, with open heartbreak, at his mate.

 _My mate_.

“Autumn itself,” she breathed, and then she nodded slowly, as if understanding something she had been mulling over for a long time, “I hope you will tell me about her one day.”

Lucien’s eyes pricked with tears. He clenched his teeth but didn’t look away. “I hope so too,” he answered, his voice pitifully weak.

Elain indeed must have pitied him, because she smiled tentatively. Lucien smiled back – not quite convincing, but he tried.

“This place is beautiful,” she turned to look at the pool; at the stars swirling inside.

Lucien closed his eyes and thought of simpler times. When he opened them, that look of uncensored wonder had painted Elain’s delicate features once again.

“Yes, it is,” he answered.

**Author's Note:**

> There won't be more chapters for this story, since I wrote it as a single 'missing scene' from the book. However, there will be an entire series of short stories centered around Lucien and Elain. I really love these two to bits!


End file.
